stell
/stɛl/
stell verb: to place in position; set up, fix, plant; prop, mount.
Verb
stell (third-person singular simple present stells, present participle stelling, simple past and past participle stelled or stold)
- To place in position; set up, fix, plant; prop, mount.
- How he escaped a broken neck in that dreadful place no human being will ever ken. The sweat, he has told me, stood in cold drops upon his forehead; he scarcely was aware of the saddle in which he sat, and his eyes were stelled in his head so that he saw nothing but the sky ayont him.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
- To portray; delineate; display.
- To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
To find a face where all distress is stelled.1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC, lines 1443–44 - Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart […]1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 24”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC
- To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
Noun
stell (plural stells)
- A place; station.
- A stall; a fold for cattle.
- A prop; a support, as for the feet in standing or climbing.
- A still.
- Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle;
Her mutchkin stowp as toom's a whissle;
An' damn'd excisemen in a bussle,
Seizin a stell,
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel,
Or limpet shell!1786, Robert Burns, The Author's Earnest Cry And Prayer - The English stell we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane—
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!1791, Robert Burns, Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation
- Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle;
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Stell
Stell
- A surname.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Stell
Stell
- A diminutive of the female given name Stella.
Forms of stell
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | stells |
| present participle | stelling |
| past participle | stelled |
| past | stelled |
| past participle | stold |
| past | stold |
| Noun | |
| plural | stells |
Origin of stell
From Middle English stellen, from Old English stellan (“to give a place to, set, place”), from Proto-West Germanic *stalljan (“to put, position”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to place, put, post, stand”). Cognate with Dutch stellen (“to set, put”), dated Low German stellen (“to put, place, fix”), German stellen (“to set, place, provide”), Old English steall (“position, place”). More at stall.
Alteration of stall, after the verb to stell.
From stell ("prop") or stell ("place")?
Words that rhyme with stell
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- hell
- hotel
- repel
- smell
- cartel
- dell
- pell
- quell
- as well
- au naturel
- dwell
- expel
- fell
- gel
- La Rochelle
- lol
- oversell
- wel
- ABDL
- dispel
- ell
- kell
- knell
- mell
- personnel
- quenelle
- snell
- undersell
- yell
- belle
- death knell
- del
- farewell
- flotel
- foretell
- gazelle
- impel
- mademoiselle
- marcel
- mel
- morell
- Moselle
- motel
- NFL
- overswell
- propel
- pucelle
- rappel
Questions about stell
- What does stell mean?
- Stell means to place in position; set up, fix, plant; prop, mount.
- What part of speech is stell?
- Stell can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce stell?
- Stell is pronounced /stɛl/.
- What is the past tense of stell?
- The past tense of stell is stelled.
Words near stell in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: stell (page history and authors); Stell (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “stell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.